


Someone's Dirty Secret

by Tsuukai



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Career, Gen, Jealousy, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Presumed Stalking, What is Kise Doing?!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-14
Updated: 2014-07-14
Packaged: 2018-02-08 20:12:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1954710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsuukai/pseuds/Tsuukai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was the second time he was contemplating the skies drifting by smoothly above them. this time, however, soft white clouds puffed their way with the wind across the expanse, while down below, them humans were cawing at each other and making plans to thwart already made plans, and if this was a movie, Taiga hoped there were some bombs and car chases because he did not pay for this RomCom of a drama that involved him as a pawn to Ryōta’s schemes of an impromptu date with Daiki.</p>
<p>Not like said man was being easy about it, either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someone's Dirty Secret

**Author's Note:**

> Foolhardiness. Making Kise out to be…stupid? Annoying? I don’t know? (But believe me when I say I love him. Despite this story.)
> 
> Oh, and despite the title…no, there is no ‘dirty’ going on here, sorry. ;_;

 

The sky was bright with the morning light, sparse clouds and twittering flying animals (or could birds be even be called animals, he wondered) as he took in Nature that beautiful calm morning. Or it would have been calm and beautiful, and maybe even quiet, if he did not find himself lying flat on his back just outside his new loft apartment with Kise Ryōta bawling his eyes out on his chest. He counted to a faraway number which he cannot remember because Ryōta thought he needed CPR in the form of loud yelling in his left ear: “I need a favour, Kagamicchi!”

Deciding to be a gentleman in a scenario that warranted nothing of the sort, Taiga bade him leeway as he helped both of them up. As distraught as the other was, he thought being kind before hearing him out would help a lot in the grand scheme of things; it might even score him some brownie points.

“Aominecchi’s spending the afternoon with you, right?” Aomine Daiki, Police Officer of a _kōban_ in Shinjuku, had recently gotten his schedule moved to the graveyard shift, allowing for late afternoon meetings if the two ever wanted to keep basketball in their lives. Taiga also had late evening shifts most weeks in a month, so those free afternoons had been slotted as basketball workouts. They had enjoyed these days between themselves hardly interrupted in a hazy, constant kind of interaction, and for Ryōta to know of this was no brainer; the former _Kiseki no Sedai_ members always seemed to be up-to-date even after university.

“Yea,” he replied, “We’re meeting up after I finish shopping for groceries. We had dinner plans, but if you need me, I can cancel with him.”

Ryōta beamed.

“Kagamicchi’s so nice, as usual!” he crowed in that particular speech pattern of him, as if regressing into a child. “You would be doing me a huge favour if you cancel all your plans with him.”

“Ah, yea sure, I guess.” Taiga paused. “But what is it about?”

“Hm?” the blond questioned, getting onto his haunches before slowly stretching into his full height, dusting himself off. Taiga watched this, like a ritual, before doing the same. He reached for his phone in a pocket, eyes still not leaving Ryōta’s, which was why he noticed the flush on his face. His body froze. “Oh, I wanted to spend the day with Aominecchi but he said he was busy with you. If you cancel out on him, he’d be free for me, right?”

“What?”

 

***

 

It was the second time he was contemplating the skies drifting by smoothly above them. this time, however, soft white clouds puffed their way with the wind across the expanse, while down below, them humans were cawing at each other and making plans to thwart already made plans, and if this was a movie, Taiga hoped there were some bombs and car chases because he did not pay for this RomCom of a drama that involved him as a pawn to Ryōta’s schemes of an impromptu date with Daiki.

Not like said man was being easy about it, either.

Daiki, unlike how they _had_ planned, met him halfway to the grocers he usually visited when he had guests over; they had fresher products that he did not mind splurging on his guests and as appreciative of the gesture Daiki was, he had offered on and off to accompany him. Today, however, saw Taiga in a conflicting mood. Gone were the days the two men fought over the most ridiculous things that grabbed their lacking attention span, replaced with a camaraderie that Taiga enjoyed more so than nought, making it worrisome that the same mood pummelled when Daiki’s shoulders hunched at the sight of Ryōta.

“What’s Kise doing here?” If Taiga did not know any better, there was venom in those words. Ryōta did an impressive acting out of what he thought about the spiteful tone, but quickly bounced back to his boundless energy, like a child on a sugar rush. Daiki looked as if a rat was gnawing at his stomach under a heated bucket. Taiga pitied him for all of a millisecond before he recalled the reason the three of them were in this state.

“Visiting.” Daiki scoffed, bringing his hands on his hips, cocking his head to the side and sneering.

“He was just at my place an hour back, _visiting_ ,” Taiga did not bother discrediting him; Ryōta was anything if not determined and highly motivated. “Kise, your visitation is over. Now scat.”

Ryōta’s mouth hitched downwards, saddened. “But Aominecchi, Kagamicchi said I could join you, didn’t you, Kagamicchi?” the blond man turned to face him, making faces and eyes that he probably thought meant full sentences, forgoing normal human forms of communication.

“Ah, yea,” Daiki did not look, for one second, like he believed the unrehearsed dialogue, but drawing on his largely unused patience, clenched his jaw shut, blue eyes dark and hooded. Taiga kept his stare for a few more moments, itching, then gestured in front, “Why don’t I go and buy the groceries and you guys hang out together? I’ll be a while, and I don’t want to keep you guys needlessly waiting.”

“Che,” Daiki cursed, the onomatopoeic describing the status quo perfectly. He did not move though. “I’ll help out. I passed by the store already, thinking you were gleefully buying all the meat that was on offer, but didn’t find you there.” That was surprising; Taiga had to reign in the shock carefully or Daiki would burst a vein thinking he was ungrateful, especially when the man continued, saying, “Good thing I caught you, and…” looking in Ryōta’s direction, “Kise’s here, ‘cause we’ll get more per person.”

And as if remembering something else, he brightened, a grin slowly overtaking his face, “Eggs are on sale.”

Taiga grinned along, then frowned. “I am not making you an o-bentō, you jerk,” apprehending why Daiki was excited about the eggs. Said man’s face drooped, but the sparkle in his eyes remained like some cheap imitation of glitter magic. “You haven’t returned any of my bentō boxes and _furushiki_.” He started walking forward.

“Tomorrow,” he announced, walking alongside him without missing a beat. “I’ll come by and drop them off. So, how about it? I want _dashimaki_ this time.”

“Say…” they both halted at the unsteady tremor in Ryōta’s voice from behind them, and turning to look, saw a wobbly-mouthed blond whose eyes were narrowed more than usual. “You make Aominecchi’s o-bentō regularly, Kagamicchi?”

Taiga cringed. No matter how calmly the question was asked, there was definitely an accusation in there somewhere. A trap waiting to spring. A predator watching its prey. A cold shiver ran up and down his spine leisurely, doing a brisk workout since he himself could not do the same and run. Away. “Um, some- sometimes?” he hazard almost questioningly. A sideways glance at Daiki conferred that he was not going to let it down, though.

“Oh yea,” the dark-skinned idiot swaggered, pride oozing out of his thick skinned pores. “All the time. His food’s delicious!” chuckling as he rubbed the back of his neck, he grinned some more. Taiga wanted to smack his face into oblivion. “My mom’s glad Taiga’s there to cook for me, otherwise she wouldn’t have let me move out of the house. And between the two of us, you know Satsuki’s…not made for being a housewife.” Frowning, he muttered, “Or any wife. God that woman needs help.”

Taiga smacked his face with his own hand, wanting so desperately to do so for the other beside him—he was digging taiga’s grave with a backhoe and a smile a mile wide.

“Oh?”

“Yea, yea,” Daiki thumped his back aggressively, his happiness so painful in all senses. Taiga wanted to cry.

“Momoi isn’t even your wife,” Taiga decided to curb the conversation, swivelling on his foot to resume the task at hand: changing the topic that would lead to his demise. The glare at the back of his head did not waver though. He paled. “So she can’t be called a housewife.”

“But she does come over to clean up and all,” Daiki mulled, probably looking for another (derogatory to Momoi) word to call his best friend-cum-saviour of his lacking hygiene. “Hmm.”

“Maybe that’s because you live with Kuroko, you numbskull,” Taiga decided, before he dies via javelin to the back of his head, he will spill to Momoi what all Daiki has chortled to him. Like the time she broke into Kuroko’s room while he was sleeping. _Yea_ , he decided, nodding, _I’ll do that._

“Ah, maybe you should make Karaage for dinner, so that I could get that in my lunch,” Daiki was thinking aloud.

Taiga wheezed, clutching a hand to his chest. _What is that idiot doing?!_

“Why don’t I cook for you today, Aominecchi?” Ryōta called out suddenly, bringing them to another stop in their travel. At this point Taiga just wanted to go home and sleep, pretend the afternoon was not happening.

“Nah, it’s okay,” Daiki dismissed him completely, causing Ryōta’s eyes to bulge out in surprise. “Taiga’s already cooking for me.” He started walking ahead, this time a quicker pace than before, sauntering to the grocer just a few meters away from where they were.

 

***

 

Outside the grocers, Ryōta was desperate, clutching Taiga's shirt sleeve, tugging it viciously as he stopped him from entering after Daiki. "You should tell me what to do, Kagamicchi; you're gay! I'm _not_ , but I have gay feelings for him!!" then beaming for all of a second, he smirked widely, and stage whispering, “I’m Daiksexual.”

Taiga did not appreciate the statement that sounded more like an accusation from the blond male. He had come out, per se, when he had introduced his ex-boyfriend the last time they had all met up for _yozakura_ in April, causing a mass spluttering and insinuations that he watched their legs when they played streetball, making his date uncomfortable. Taiga briefly reminiscences how the two lasted for a mere two weeks after that occasion because the other was insecure of the people taiga knew in his life. “They’re all so… you can do better than me, Kagami,” the man had said. Instead, breathing out through his nose in a gusting sigh, he turned to watch Daiki. And grimaced. "You sure about that? You still have time to change your mind," he warned.

 Ryōta spoke while turning to view the man of all the unprecedented emotions taking his life by the reins and railroading it. "Of course I'll stick by—" he stalled, seeing the Mai Horikita Special Autumn-Winter Seasonal Exposure with an ecstatic font pronouncing a never seen before centrefold, spread open wide before half-masted eyes as tanned fingers artlessly flipped the glossy pages slowly and carefully; if Daiki could, he would treat them like collector's editions, and mount them on his wall, still in their plastics. Both men were actually surprised he did not do so already. In fact, from what Kuroko told Taiga, the shorter man had found no need to threaten Daiki if he posted blow-ups of the model.

"I'll do something about that filthy habit of his," was the confident, emphatic vow. Taiga nodded, not believing it in the slightest, but kept his mouth shut.

 

***

 

“I can’t believe you got us kicked out of the store,” Daiki grumbled, his incredulity shown in how calmly he appeared. All the visible muscles in his body were tense and bunched, waiting to spring into action just to get rid of all the anger he was surpressing. Taiga did not know why the other held his peace when on other circumstances he was the first to snap.

“I didn’t know they’d kick me out because I was _popular_ , Aominecchi,” Ryōta looked distraught, following on his heels.

“You mean _popularly disliked_ ,” he groused, commenting on the actual reason Ryōta was asked to leave by the owner.

“Honestly, it’s been years since I gave up on modelling, and I can’t even remember all the promotions I endorsed. How was I supposed to know I spoke against that small time grocer?” he huffed, arms and legs akimbo.

Frowning, Taiga wants to believe adding a number to your age each year also means that you are one year more mature than the previous year. He wants to believe it, but seeing Ryōta, he does not think it applies to him. The blond was still a brat.

Daiki agrees with him, if only it means that they can get on with their day without Ryōta sticking to his side, standing in between Taiga and him. It comes to the point where Daiki is moving ahead of the two of them, mood sour, as Taiga and Ryōta bring up the rear.

“How about I treat you to dinner then?” Ryōta asked, smiling sweetly. “To apologise?” Taiga did not have to be a soothsayer to see this end badly.

 

***

 

Ryōta’s walls broke down whenever he glanced behind at him, as they made their way out of the station. Like some dutiful wife, he remained two steps away from Daiki, but leaned forward into his personal bubble anyway. It was a comical sight, Ryōta pursuing Daiki, Daiki ignoring him, Ryōta trying to get Taiga to step in for him, placating with his whole lithe body in angry, jerky gesticulations to ‘ _do something about this!!_ ’

He was vociferous in his final silent demand, kneeling theoretically in the middle of the street, but Taiga guesses that there was something else niggling in his mind to give into the pitiful male. Reaching out to pet the blond tresses, he sighed, calling out to the other male walking away. “Aomine,” said man turned to face him, an eyebrow raised in question, “I forgot that my dad’s supposed to video call me, and my data plan’s already screwed this month, so I’m heading home, okay? You guys just go eat without me.”

Daiki frowned, the displeased look radiating all sorts of unpleasant vibes from his posture as he walked back to them. He completely ignored Ryōta who was still kneeling on the floor beside his feet, looking straight at him as he said, “Can’t help it then.”

Nodding, Taiga lifted his hand from Ryōta’s head and waved. “Okay then, see—”

“We’ll head over to your place,” Daiki continued, striding past them both to lead them back to the station they had just exited.

“Huh?”

“Eh?”

Taiga glanced at Ryōta as he rose, his won confusion reflecting back at him through widened gold eyes. Taiga sighed, decided it was easier to follow on and loose them on the way, and hope to all those Higher Beings that Daiki would not go medieval on his ass.

 

***

 

Deciding to wing it, Taiga grabbed Ryōta’s phone, sending himself a blank message and quickly, before his own could receive it, shoved the device back into its owner’s hands. Ryōta looked confused, staring with those Bambi eyes of his, then shrugged before gushing at Daiki. Daiki, however, looked put-upon, glaring balefully at the passing scenery. The day had started out so differently than how he can just imagine it ending.

Taiga’s phone message alert beeped loud enough in the semi-empty train car. The three glanced at the red phone Taiga slipped out before the other two decided to give him some privacy, turning away. “Ah,” he sounded, reading it. The train started to slow down into the coming stop, opening its doors, allowing passengers to alight or exit. As the warning alarms started up, Taiga stood and rushed off the train, saying, “Dad’s saying he can’t make it, so I guess I’ll just head back to my grocery shopping,” which had been severely postponed.

Thinking it was the end of the ridiculous mee-mawing and hedging that Ryōta had made him go through all for the sake of getting some alone time with (a long-suffering) Daiki, Taiga rubbed his aching face muscles with both his hands, sighing louder than ever. He pulled out his phone, the bane of his existence, scowling at it before, as quick as lightning it was snatched out of his hands. Thinking the day could not get any worse, he had to chase after a thief in broad daylight as well.

However, his thief turned out to be Officer Daiki Aomine who himself was scowling at the opened device, thumbing the keypad.

“That’s a crime, you know,” Taiga reminded him, stretching out for his phone. Daiki moved it away, glaring at Taiga, before returning to the phone. “Why did you get off?” he glanced behind Daiki and Ryōta was surely there, eyes rimmed with excess moisture.

“Whatever,” Daiki then paused at something that caught his attention in particular, snapping his head to the side at Ryōta. “Mind explaining this to me?” he snarled, shoving the phone, rather in Taiga’s chest, but at Ryōta’s instead.

“Kagamicchi’s just being nice, Aominecchi, giving us our due space.”

“What space?!” Ryōta returned Taiga’s phone, pouting and batting his eyelashes at Daiki. “You’re encroaching on _our_ time together, you imbecile!”

Ryōta cried out, “But after today it’ll be difficult to even get time off to see you, Aominecchi. So Kagamicchi was being kind enough to give us that.”

Silence so deafening followed the confession, despite the stragglers on the platform. Most of those who were staring had been first frightened off by Taiga, but as Daiki’s eyebrows met and conferred on his forehead, no one was looking at them, even if some of the fairer sex recognised Ryōta.

"Okay, you two," Daiki sounded, for one glorious moment, mature and his age; "You're grounded. Now stop stalking me already, Kise. Taiga, come and bring your game face on—I'll fucking pound your sorry ass for falling for his puppy eyes and all those sparkles."

Ryōta wailed, falling to his knees in one smooth motion, tears flowing, "Why are you pounding his ass, Aominecchi?!" He threw up his hands to his gold-yellow locks. "He'll probably fight for being on top! I won't—at least not yet—so choose me!!"

Taiga groaned into his hands, covering his face and wondering to himself exactly what he got himself into. Surely that should be a cure for his infatuation, and thinking this, he peeked through his fingers at the fate-bemoaning, newly minted pilot, how his face, now slathered with tears (and was that snot?), Ryōta still looked to be the epitome of beautiful. Well, distraughtly beautiful as it was.

Daiki was still having none of it, it seemed. One hand gripping his jutting out hip and another jerking a thumb towards Ryōta, he asked Taiga, "Exactly what do you like about this snivelling idiot?" And Taiga answered without missing a beat—damning each and every one of them to hell, he cursed—"I don't fucking know."

And in this whole span of time, Ryōta, who was wiping up the mess his crying had made, blinked Amber honeyed eyes at them each, a soft sound escaping parted pinked lips, "Eh?"

 

**Author's Note:**

> (Useless) Author’s (Useless) Explanations: Kōban is those police boxes you see in some anime and manga. Residential areas have maybe one or two boxes, smaller areas requiring only one officer stationed, or two if the neighbourhood is moderately inflicted by petty crime. Places like where Aomine is stationed (Shinjuku, Shibuya) the boxes have 3-5 officers and they are allowed to carry firearms. :D
> 
> Furushiki is something you usually see only in relation to wrapping up o-bentō, but actually, it is generally used to wrap and carry most items.
> 
> Dashimaki is rolled omelette similar to Tamagoyaki only difference is what’s in it. Guess what’s in this one? Yea, it’s the dashi, a kind of clear stock broth that adds a more intense flavour than just plain egg and/or sugar/soy sauce. 
> 
> Yozakura, “Cherry trees at evening”, is the nightly version of viewing of sakura blossoms (Hanami) wherein onlookers are surrounded by lit paper lanterns. The contrast is really amazing, depending on how much light is surrounding them; it either looks like you’re surrounded by a blaze of fire and ice, or if it’s just early evening and you’re with your partner, the soft yellow-pink really sets the mood (if you know what I mean :P). On the other hand, if there is white lighted lanterns, surrounded by the trees, you feel electrified, and it’s almost scary.


End file.
